Sony has released a new small phone, the Xperia Ace — but unfortunately for fans of small-but-mighty mobile devices, it will be exclusive to the Japanese market.

According to GSMArena the elusive smartphone has a 5-inch LCD screen on an 18:9 aspect ratio, with a Full HD+ resolution. Under the hood you’ll find a 2700mAh battery and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There’s an 8-megapixel selfie embedded in the front bezel, and a single 12-megapixel rear camera.

The handset will be available in three colours: Black, White, and Purple, retailing for JP¥ 48,600 (~£350/$445).

During production, the Xperia Ace was speculated to be the Xperia Xz4 Compact, a successor to the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. But Sony has reorganised their product lineup, launching the Xperia 1 and Xperia 10 instead of continuing with the XZ series.

The Xperia 10 received 3.5 stars in our review, as we were disappointed with the processing power and battery life. The Xperia 1 is currently available for pre-order, and is expected to be released on May 30 in the UK. In our brief hands-on we think it has the potential to be a challenger in the flagship market — but it’s certainly not compact, with a 6.5-inch screen in a towering 21:9 aspect ratio.

The latest trend in the smartphone market has screens getting bigger and bigger – take for instance the Huawei Mate 20 X and its gargantuan 7.2-inch screen.

Petite-handed tech consumers have felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of options for a more manageable size of phone, especially as the iPhone SE has recently been withdrawn from sale. Rumours of an iPhone SE 2 are encouraging but have yet to be officially substantiated. In the meantime your best bet might be the Google Pixel 3, which has a manageable 5.5-inch screen.

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